Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/356

346 346 On the Early Kijigs of Attica. of what is professedly related on ancient authority. We shall find upon examination that for the heroic age this au- thority is far less than the faith with which its history has been received would have led us to expect. It is a striking circumstance that in going back into Attic history for ex^ ample^ with which we have here more immediately to do, we scarcely find half a dozen facts recorded from the legis- lation of Draco to the death of Codrus, but that we no sooner reach the times of Theseus and his predecessors, than information flows in upon us in a torrent. History sponta- neously offers us far more than we should ever have thought of asking at her hands ; curiosity is gratified not only with an account of changes of dynasties, wars, invasions, mutual slaughters and exiles, but with minute details of family anecdotes and gallant adventures. But as sudden wealth sometimes leads to the suspicion of forgery, this unexpected accession to the stores of history will make the cautious critic only look more narrowly for the stamp of genuineness ^ His suspicions will be more easily excited than allayed. Con- temporary authority is out of the question ; there is a dark interval of unknown length between the supposed ter- mination of the heroic times and the age of Homer and Hesiod ; if any thing was composed, (for we must not speak of writing) in this interval, it had perished before the commencement of the historical times. Had we even pos- sessed the works of the bards who before Homer em- ployed mythology as the material of their epics, since the essential character of the poet is to make^ we should still have been at a loss to know how much they had made and how much they had taken from historical sources. But in fact we have no reason to believe that a sinscle line of the antehomeric poets was preserved even to the times of the eyelid^ much less to the age in which prose writers be- gan to systematize mythology and connect it with history. Our belief then that the story of the heroic times is in the main historical^ must arise from our confidence in the ' Wepl ixhv ToJz/ Ka% ' rxa^ yeyevi]fxeva}v tov^ aKpi^eaTaTa XeyouTa^ irLGTora- Tovs tjyov/uieda, irepl oe twz/ 'jrakaLcoif tous ovtm Sie^LovTa^ aVtOaywrarous elvaL vofii^ofxev, vTroXa/ULpduovTe^ out€ Ta§ irpdj^ei^ ciTraaa^ oi/Ve twv Xoywu tous TrXetcr- Tous elfios eTi/at (xvit/xovevecrdaL Std toctovtwv. Ephorus, Marx. p. 64.